Hello once again, peeps!  After a long time trying to finish this series, I’ve finally done it!  Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is a brilliantly-designed series, and I would like to review it here as best I can.

As always, my rating system for Anime is a little weird, but all of the notes for my style of judgement is on a separate page on the blog.

A short synopsis:  Frieren is an elf mage who, along with the Hero Himmel, the priest Heiter, and the warrior Eisen, defeated the Demon King of their world.  Frieren returns to keep a promise to Himmel after fifty years, and is able to be with her party once more before the Hero passes, where she regrets not spending enough time with her short-lived allies.  The show follows the struggle of Frieren trying to understand humans’ emotions, reasonings, and beliefs, while simultaneously retracing her adventures with a new party of younger people.

From here on, it’s spoiler territory.

Before I go into the actual ratings, please let me warn you: this show has a bunch of emotional gut punches right off the bat.  The series has some heartwarming stuff and some comedic stuff, but the first few episodes are about Freiren reconnecting with her old party before they die of old age.

Plot / Story: 9.5/10

The idea of a story taking place after the big bad has been killed may seem boring, but Frieren is more about the journey than the end goal (or in this case, the second journey).  There are still plenty of leftovers from the Demon King in this world, from hostile monsters to still-allegiant demons.

There are some plot points that seem arbitrary at first (like Frieren collecting a useless spell to make grapes more sour) that get their Chekhov’s Gun (she uses it because Eisen’s favorite food is super sour grapes), and it seems like everything in the story has it’s moment of “so THAT’S what that’s for”.  The small bits that you capture in every moment of the show are very well-planned, and the author Kanehito Yamada definitely did their damndest to make sure of it.

A large point of the series, at least as I see it, is “change”; the effects of it, how to deal with it, and how to go through life with it constantly happening.  It’s mostly told through Frieren’s eyes, but there are clear moments of story development happening in the present story (as opposed to flashbacks involving the Hero’s Party, though a good amount in the first cour happens this way).

Character Development: 9.0/10

In my honest opinion, there is a disparity in how well the characters develop their relationships – AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH! It is normal for people to develop relationships at different rates with different people, and for a long-lived elf in groups with humans and dwarves (who are shorter-lived, but still pretty ageless), it makes sense that Frieren would have trouble building bonds with people who live a fraction of her own life.  However, it seems like with Fern and Stark, she has an urgency to try and build those bonds before it’s too late, likely due to influence from her time lost with the Hero’s Party.

Character development between minor characters also seems like it was well thought-out, because so many characters are aware of Frieren’s presence and accolades throughout the world – even the demons, though they always seem to underestimate her skills.

I honestly don’t have a lot more to say on this point: the character development was well-done, and over the course of 28 episodes, you can really feel the effort that the author put into each character, without feeling rushed or overdone.

Art / Acting / Music: 10/10

The show is beautifully animated, and most scenes seem to have great care taken in the process.  While it’s not as painstakingly animated as the early-2000s series or any of the well-made movies, it is better and more fluid in more scenes than any other series I watched in the 2023-2024 Winter Season, or anything I’ve seen in the 2020s for that matter.

The acting is just as carefully directed and performed as the animation – from the very first episode at Himmel’s funeral, you can almost feel the emotion and power in Tanezaki Atsumi’s (Frieren’s) performance, though I must admit that some of the other characters seem a little lackluster in comparison.  Despite that note, each character is well-performed and has their own nuances that complement each co-actor, from Frieren’s interactions with Himmel and the Hero’s Party, to Fern and Stark, and even the little interactions with minor characters like the town leaders and the demonkin.  If you watch the dub, I hope you’ll agree that the pronunciation of Stark’s name is the most unbearable part of it.

As for the music, this show is the reason I added Music to this section – as I was finalizing the review for Buddy Daddies, I took a moment to appreciate the incredible musical performances done in not only the OPs and EDs, but the atmospheric scenes and the general moments.  I was reminded of my first time trying to watch this show – I was engrossed in the score in every scene, every episode, and every time it ended, there was a sense of wanting to hear more.  As soon as I found out that the soundtrack was available to download in my region, I bought it.  Specifically, the insert song “bliss” and both parts of the ending theme “Anytime, Anywhere”, both sung by milet, are beautifully arranged and performed and make my heart hurt every time I hear them.  Also, I didn’t realize when I added “Hareru” by Yorushika to my music library that it was the second opening theme, and that makes me happy.

Rewatch Value: 8.5/10

THIS SHOW IS HARD TO WATCH ALL AT ONCE.  I really struggled watching the show as it was releasing, and even now, the first few episodes are hard to get through emotionally.  Luckily, I’ve started watching series with minimal distractions at regular periods, so I can force through the pain and watch this series with a bit more clarity.  Back in 2023, I stopped watching around episode 10, and only picked it up again on the 1st, starting it over to make sure I didn’t forget anything.

The show isn’t bad (quite the contrary, it’s AMAZING), but the heavy themes of loss in the first few episodes can be a struggle to watch all at once – and if you end up watching multiple shows when you watch this, you may leave it behind as I did the first time.  Once you get through the first two or three episodes, the show has a more relaxed tone (there’s still an undertone of loneliness and sadness, but it’s not nearly as pronounced).  Watching it in small chunks has helped me maintain a level head, and the action and comedy in the series eventually overpowers the somber drama – though this may change once I complete the season (which I realized, as I started this post, is 28 episodes, not 26!)  This is probably not a show you should watch as a comfort show, just due to the constant sadness and death prevalent throughout.

Overall Rating: 10/10

I can’t express enough how much I love this series as a whole: the premise, the characters, the art and music, and even the small details that I normally wouldn’t pay attention to are all great facets of the series that I haven’t been able to praise as heavily as I could other series (Monogatari Series is close, but I have less criticisms for Frieren than even that series).

A second season has been announced, also produced by MADHOUSE, though no date has been set (I haven’t seen any speculation, but the studio was patient enough to wait six months before announcing, so a well-designed S2 could be as soon as Winter 2025).  If they don’t rush production like so many studios have been doing (Uzumaki, Mushoku Tensei S2, OPM II), I have confidence that Season 2 will be just as good, if not better than, Season 1.

Frieren is available primarily on Crunchyroll, but you can also buy the first cour dubbed on Fandango At Home (formerly Vudu).

Total Score: 47.0/50

Grade: A